How early precursor cells and their surrounding microenvironment cooperate to drive oncogenic progression in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remains elusive. In this issue of Cancer Cell, Peng et al. conducted multimodal spatial-omics to comprehensively profile precancerous lung and LUAD tissues, uncovering alveolar progenitors and proinflammatory niches that co-evolve during cancer progression.

GigaTIME leverages multimodal AI to generate virtual multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) profiles from standard H&E slides, enabling comprehensive tumor immune microenvironment modeling across a large (>14,000) and diverse patient population. This virtual approach unlocks new opportunities for large-scale clinical discoveries that were previously hindered by the scarcity of mIF data.

We've made extraordinary progress. When I started my career, we were in analogue mode. We didn't have any ability to sequence...